


(And when they died) All they left us was alone

by JustALuckyBug



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hale Family Feels, Mentions of canon character death, Pre-Series, Work In Progress, little baby Derek, lots of sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustALuckyBug/pseuds/JustALuckyBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes when the house seems much too loud and much too full, he crawls through the broken steps and lies under the porch. Down there, the ground is cool and damp, it smells like earth and summer, and best of all he is alone, away from his cousins and away from Mama, who watches him train and frowns when he’s not fast enough."</p>
<p>One-shots and drabbles about Derek, mostly pre-series and background because he hurts so much and I can't stop thinking about why. Lots of pack-feels and Laura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Secret

Sometimes when the house seems much too loud and much too full, he crawls through the broken steps and lies under the porch. Down there, the ground is cool and damp, it smells like earth and summer, and best of all he is alone, away from his cousins and away from Mama, who watches him train and frowns when he’s not fast enough.

Uncle Peter partnered him with Laura today, which he hates because he doesn’t like to see claw marks on her arms or bites that come from him, so mostly he just tries to run away. Uncle Peter calls him soft, a little runt who needs to toughen up. Mama growls at him but never tells him that he’s wrong.

Derek hides under the porch and pretends he can’t hear the other kids hissing his name and laughing. They call him soft. They say they’re lucky Laura was born first, otherwise they’d have a little puppy for an Alpha. They laugh at that a lot, the thought of it, little Derek for an Alpha.

Sometimes Laura comes to find him and lies beside him in the dirt. She grabs his hand in hers and calls them little shits, which makes him giggle because that’s a bad word and Laura isn’t meant to swear.

Underneath the porch, Laura is his sister. Outside, she is the Alpha heir and the oldest of the cousins, which means she holds her chin like she’s important and all grown up. But when it’s just the two of them she says shit and damn and lets him curl into her side like he did when he was small.

Sometimes she whispers secrets to him like he’s something special. Lying in the dark one hot August afternoon, she tells him how she’s scared she won’t be happy in Beacon Hills. She says she wants to run away, live in a big city where the lights stay on after nine and the sidewalks sparkle in the sun. He doesn’t tell her it’s impossible, that Mama would never let her, because under the porch she is not Alpha heir, she’s only Laura, so instead he tells her he’d follow her anywhere, and she grabs his hand in hers.

In September, they crawl under the porch. Derek whispers, I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to be the Alpha, Laura whispers back. There’s nothing he can say to that, because at school they call him shy and girls point at him on the playground, but Laura has her life planned out like a road map, and he knows who has it worse. They lie there in silence, and Derek listens to her heartbeat, a steady one-two, one-two. He wonders when they’ll be too big to crawl through the hole in the broken steps. He hopes it’s not for years and years.

(Derek thinks about the porch a lot. He doesn’t think about the teasing or the training or his mom, but he thinks about his sister’s voice, the way it broke with fear and anger at the thought of being Alpha. He thinks about Laura when he kills his uncle, can hear her voice in his head, saying _I just want to run away_.)


	2. Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Cora is born they place her gently in his arms and tell him to be careful. They say, babies are very fragile, and Derek is terrified, because he’s clumsy and forgetful, things around him always break.

When Cora is born they place her gently in his arms and tell him to be careful. They say, babies are very fragile, and Derek is terrified, because he’s clumsy and forgetful, things around him always break. 

Cora is feather-light in his arms, and her heartbeat is a flutter of sound that’s barely there. He thinks his own heart must be deafening, he’s never been so scared. 

Mama laughs softly, takes the baby back, and tells him not to worry. You’ll be a good big brother, Derek, Papa says and gives his shoulder a warm squeeze. 

Later, he tells Laura just how scared he is. He says, I can’t be a big brother, I don’t know how. Laura smiles and says, I held you once too, you know. But Derek can’t imagine Laura ever felt like this, too small and yet too big, like his hands aren’t soft or strong enough. 

(After the fire, when it’s just the two of them, before he knows Cora is alive, Derek thinks about that day. He thinks about how ever since that moment he’s been Big Brother Derek, and how he isn’t anymore. He looks at his hands still covered in soot and ash, and he tries to remember what to do with them now that he doesn’t have a baby sister left to hold.

Much, much later he cradles Erica’s limp body in his arms, holds her close to his heart that beats so loud still while hers has long since stopped. He holds her in his hands that feel so weak and he thinks about himself, five years old, filled with fear, and he thinks, I can’t be a big brother, I don’t know how.)


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have bonfires every summer.

They have bonfires every summer. It’s not safe to have them at home because there’s no room and the trees would catch fire, so they all drive to the lake in their big cars packed with foldup chairs and towels and happy, laughing cubs with popsicle-stained smiles.

They spend the day playing in the sand on the beach-that-isn’t-a-beach and cool off in the water when the sun burns too bright. They race each other to the dock and have diving contests, score each other’s jumps on biggest splash and most creative.

Derek is small, one of the youngest, so he isn’t fast and he doesn’t know how to dive. If he stays out for too long he can’t keep his head above the water, and he’s always the monkey in the middle when they play, but he doesn’t care much, doesn’t come in until Mama growls from the bank and only then because he can’t disobey.

When their legs turn to jelly, the other kids drag themselves onto the sand and lie beached on their towels until the sky changes color. Derek usual falls asleep just when the sun is dipping below the tree line. He wakes up to the sound of wood being snapped in half, to the crackle and pop of the fire as it eats through the kindle, lightning quick.

Derek likes the fire because it’s like a living thing that moves and talks, and if you stare at it long enough, it fills you with a kind of satisfaction and you think, look at this, I helped _make_ this.

At school they learn that wolves are monsters that eat little girls with grandmothers, and that humans are the most evolved, better than animals because they stand on two legs and use tools. But at home Mama calls them her mighty wolf pack, and he’s too little to shift, but the others howl when the moon is full, so Derek doesn’t always know who he is. Maybe evolved, maybe a monster.

But every summer they go to the beach and Derek stares into the fire that’s so _beautiful,_ and he thinks that he can’t be a monster because, _look at this wonderful thing that he’s made_.

The fire tells Derek that he’s fine the way he is, so he loves it.

(He hates fire because it’s like a living thing, uncontrollable and cruel. Then he used to get so close to the heat Mama had to yank him back. Now he skates around fire like a scared little pup afraid of being burnt. 

At twenty-three, Derek knows that he is not a monster and wishes desperately that he were; maybe then he wouldn’t be so scared.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll keep posting as I get inspiration, but expect erratic updates, sorry. Tell me what you thought!


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